Police: Plane stowaway arrested at Phoenix airport

Embargo: Los Angeles
Marilyn Hartman is shown in a San Mateo County Sheriff's Office booking photo from another occasion in which she was found in a secure airport area without a ticket at SFO in March 2014. By San Mateo County Sheriff

PHOENIX (AP) -- A woman accused of trying to sneak aboard multiple flights without a ticket and sentenced to jail for returning to a Los Angeles airport in violation of her probation was arrested Tuesday after being recognized loitering at a Phoenix airport, police said.

Police were requesting a mental health evaluation for Marilyn Jean Hartman, 62, who was taken into custody near baggage claim at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on suspicion of criminal trespass, said Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Hartman was recognized by airport personnel about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday "loitering around a checkpoint and again was not in possession of an airline ticket," Crump said. It wasn't the first time she's been spotted at the Phoenix airport.

Hartman was removed from Sky Harbor on Aug. 20 and given a trespass warning after she attempted to enter a security checkpoint without a ticket, Crump said. That incident came just four days after she was released from jail in California because of overcrowding, only serving a fraction of her 117-day sentence.

Police did not know how she got to Phoenix after being released from a detention center in Lynwood, California, and did not know if she had an attorney who could speak on her behalf.

A court commissioner had ordered Hartman to serve jail time for wandering around LAX on Aug. 7, a day after being ordered to stay away from that airport.

Hartman, who has made previous attempts to sneak aboard flights at other airports, was arrested Aug. 4 for taking a Southwest Airlines flight from San Jose to Los Angeles without a ticket, authorities said. Her boarding status was discovered once the plane landed in Los Angeles.

At Mineta San Jose International Airport, Hartman tried at least three times to get to a plane before she finally went past a security screener who was busy checking a family's documents, law enforcement officials said.

She later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of willfully and unlawfully entering Los Angeles as a stowaway on an aircraft and was sentenced to two years of probation.

In February, Hartman was sentenced to 18 months' probation in San Mateo County after being arrested for attempting to board three Hawaii-bound flights at San Francisco International Airport on three separate days.